


Run To/From

by beaubete



Category: The Skulls (2000)
Genre: M/M, really really, yes this is really Skulls fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years and a hundred thousand miles, forgetting is hard when you can't quite disappear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run To/From

**Author's Note:**

> For the Butt Brigade again; inspired by our ridiculous Halloween movie nights. Best. Friends. Ever.

Sometimes it takes a little bit of time.  Sometimes it takes a lot of time, a lot of alcohol, and a complete change of scenery, but even then there’s no way to truly get away.  It’s Sweden, for crying out loud, Sweden in cold, crisp lines and glass and steel, somehow organic and alien at the same time, and he’s looking at Caleb with disbelief etched into the very lines of his face, but Caleb just grins.

Somehow he finds himself at lunch with his ex-roommate.  Luke tells himself that it’s self-preservation, that he doesn’t want to make a scene, doesn’t want to see who, even here, owes their loyalty to the Skulls.  He’s died once, figuratively, and nearly once again, literally, and he’s been having such a good time pretending that neither ever happened that it’s almost entirely like a slap in the face to be reminded so suddenly.

“—so I finally just agreed to the stupid skiing trip, and then who do I see through the window but my old college roommate?” Caleb is saying, eyes flashing fake cheer.  Luke stares at him, and Caleb’s hands fall to his lap.  ”I’m glad to see you again,” he says.  He means,  _I’m glad you’re not dead._ “We didn’t part on the best of terms,” he says. He means,  _They told me to kill you.  I didn’t do it._   ”But look at you!  What are you up to, all the way here in Sweden?” he asks.  He means,  _You had to come here to get away from us._   ”I’ve missed you,” he says.  Luke doesn’t know what he means.  His mouth goes dry.

“Vacation,” he manages finally.  ”I’m here on vacation.”  It’s a lie; who vacations in a law office?  Neither of them mentions it.  Neither of them stretches the truth across the void between them.

“And Chloe?” Caleb asks.  He looks around as if he’ll see her nearby, maybe just coming around the corner, a newspaper under her arm.  He looks around as if the Skulls haven’t been keeping track of her for the past ten years, haven’t been keeping track of everyone involved in that bloody mess.  Like he doesn’t know she’s in Florida, like he doesn’t know she left him.  And two can play at that game.

“She’s good, thanks,” Luke says.  ”She’s not here right now.  Back in the States with the kids,”  _her children, the ones she had with her husband_ , “I called her yesterday,”  _from a payphone that couldn’t be traced back to me_ , “and she was doing pretty okay.  Holding down the fort.”

“Good to know,” Caleb says.  Silence between them, then, “Can we—?”

“Yes,” says Luke.  Because he remembers that close feeling like he’s still inside the coffin, tight heat and being pressed into the bed as Caleb works his lips along the side of his throat.  Because he remembers a hand between his thighs even as he works his own into brushed cotton slacks smooth and burnished sleek, heat trapped against his palm and in the curling damp strands at the base of his neck.  

And when he wakes up in the morning, fingers tangled in the hotel sheets, he leaves without a word, because he remembers Will, too.  Remembers best friends and broken promises and pain.  Remembers that grainy security footage and a crack like gunshot, ripping everything he knew from everything he’d ever known.

He can’t stay here, Luke realizes as he takes the cab back to his workplace.  Oslo is too familiar, and now he’s been seen.  As he ponders the world, he thinks back to Munich, Lisbon, and Prague.  He wonders what excuse Caleb will be able to come up with for the next one, and how long it’ll take him to find him next time.


End file.
